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Small Campaign Donors

Author

Listed:
  • Bouton, Laurent
  • Cage, Julia
  • Dewitte, Edgard
  • Pons, Vincent

Abstract

We build a new dataset of all 340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission 2005-2020 to study the characteristics and behavior of small campaign donors. The reporting requirements of fundraising platforms such as ActBlue enable us to observe contribution-level information on the vast majority of small donations, which have grown rapidly since 2005. Small donors differ from large donors in gender, ethnicity, and income, and they are more representative of the U.S. population. They act less strategically than large donors, respond more to candidates’ public prominence, and are more susceptible to TV and social media ads.

Suggested Citation

  • Bouton, Laurent & Cage, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard & Pons, Vincent, 2022. "Small Campaign Donors," CEPR Discussion Papers 17310, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17310
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    Cited by:

    1. Crutzen, Benoît S.Y. & Flamand, Sabine, 2023. "Leaders, factions and the determinants of electoral success," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Campaign finance; Campaign contributions; Small donations; Actblue; Winred;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

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